| Hale Conservation Park South Australia | |
|---|---|
IUCN category III (natural monument or feature) | |
  Hale Conservation Park | |
| Nearest town or city | Williamstown [1] |
| Coordinates | 34°41′17″S138°54′28″E / 34.6881430409999°S 138.907698708°E Coordinates: 34°41′17″S138°54′28″E / 34.6881430409999°S 138.907698708°E [2] |
| Established | 9 January 1964 [3] |
| Area | 1.89 km2 (0.7 sq mi) [4] |
| Managing authorities | Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources |
| Website | Hale Conservation Park |
| See also | Protected areas of South Australia |
Hale Conservation Park (formerly Hale National Park and Hale Wild-Life Reserve) is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located in the locality of Williamstown about 60 kilometres (37 miles) north-east of the state capital of Adelaide and about 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) south-east of the town centre in Williamstown. [5] [6]
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the enabling laws of each country or the regulations of the international organizations involved.
South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and fifth largest by population. It has a total of 1.7 million people, and its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital, Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second largest centre, has a population of 28,684.
Williamstown is a small South Australian village on the southern fringe of the Barossa Valley wine-growing region. It is 51 km north east of Adelaide and 16 km south-east of Gawler. Williamstown was originally known as Victoria Creek. The village was laid out in 1858 by Lewis Johnston, or Johnstone, on land he purchased in 1857, and named for his son.
Contents
The conservation park consists of land in sections 119, 124, 125, 135, 138 and 315 in the cadastral unit of the Hundred of Barossa. [7]
The Hundred of Barossa is a cadastral unit of hundred in South Australia in the northern Adelaide Hills. It lies west of the Barossa Range at the south end of the Barossa Valley and is bounded on the north and south by the North Para and South Para rivers, respectively. It is the most northern of the eleven hundreds of the County of Adelaide and was named in 1846 by Governor Frederick Robe after the Barossa Range.
Land consisting of sections 119, 124, 125, 135 and 138 first gained protected status as a wildlife reserve proclaimed on 9 January 1964 under the Crown Lands Act 1929. [3] On 4 February 1965, all of the land previously proclaimed as a wildlife reserve in 1964 and section 315 were proclaimed as the Hale Wild-Life Reserve under the Crown Lands Act 1929. [8] On 9 November 1967, all of the land was proclaimed under the National Parks Act 1966 as the Hale National Park. [9] The national park was re-proclaimed under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 as the Hale Conservation Park on 27 April 1972. [7] As of 2018, it covered an area of 1.89 square kilometres (0.73 sq mi). [4]
In 1980, the conservation park was described as follows: [6]
Hale Conservation Park is situated in rugged hilly country of the north-central Mount Lofty Ranges. The dominant plant community is a low open forest of Eucalyptus obliqua , E. goniocalyx and E. fasciculosa , above a mid-dense heath understorey. Common mammals in the park are Macropus fuliginosus (western grey kangaroo) and Tachyglossus aculeatus (echidna), while over sixty species of birds have been recorded. A walking track traverses the length of the park... The Zoothera dauma (scaly thrush) which is a threatened bird in South Australia due to destruction of its habitat ... can be found in the park. Together with Warren Conservation Park to the South, the park contains unique geological exposures of a recently discovered unconformity between the Adelaidian sequence and a rejuvenated crystalline basement inlier.
Eucalyptus obliqua, commonly known as the brown top, brown top stringbark, messmate, messmate stringybark, stringybark or Tasmanian oak, is a hardwood tree native to south-eastern Australia.
Eucalyptus goniocalyx, is a small to medium-sized tree native to south-eastern Australia. Common names include long-leaved box, olive-barked box and bundy. The species has rough and persistent bark to the small branches. It is fibrous, greyish, becoming deeply fissured, thick and shaggy in larger trees. Adult leaves are stalked, lanceolate to 20 x 3 cm, concolorous and green.
Eucalyptus fasciculosa, the pink gum, hill gum or scrub gum, is a species of Eucalyptus which is endemic to Australia. It was first described by Mueller in 1855.
The conservation park is classified as an IUCN Category III protected area. [2] In 1980, it was listed on the former Register of the National Estate. [6]
The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, and education. IUCN's mission is to "influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable".
The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. It has been replaced by the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heritage List and various state and territory heritage registers.
